While no one, including Brownlee, argues the Christchurch rebuild was perfect, the most essential infrastructure was repaired surprisingly quickly, an effort repeated with the Kaikoura highway.
Those are successful projects Prime Minster Christopher Luxon could point to at his infrastructure summit for foreign investors, planned for March.
The Ardern-Hipkins government also made progress with its shovel-ready projects and original fast-track scheme. The successful reconstruction of the Coromandel’s crucial Taparahi Bridge in under a year after the February 2023 storms shows not every infrastructure project in New Zealand must be a fiasco.
The road cones we so despise are, we should concede, also evidence of progress.
Yet, overall, our infrastructure is still falling ever further behind.
Bridges, now chairman of New Zealand Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA), is as clear as a ministerial appointee can be that there is no possibility of funding all the new roads Luxon and Transport Minister Simeon Brown have promised. There will have to be a mix of tolls, value capture and private and Crown funds. Luxon says Brown should have a package of investable roading projects ready for his big summit in March.
Luxon couldn’t provide evidence to support his more elaborate criticisms of the current consenting regime – that it takes eight years to consent a wind farm, for example.
Still, no one doubts crucial projects are held up unnecessarily by red tape. A project being turned down or modifications being required on environmental grounds is evidence of the system working. But waits of even two years for a yes or no suggest it is broken.
Successive governments have promised for decades to rewrite or radically reform the Resource Management Act 1991. As early as 1996 – and as far back as that – I learned as a young speechwriter that ministers could win easy applause from farming and business audiences by promising to fix three three-letter acronyms: ACC, OSH and the RMA.
Over 30 years, something was done about ACC and OSH, but complaints about the 300,000-word RMA have only grown louder. Yet rewriting the RMA has so far proven beyond the capability of even nine-year Governments, who would presumably now tell us they needed 12.
Stopgaps like David Parker’s successful Covid-19 Recovery (Fast-track Consenting) Act 2020 and Bishop’s Fast-track Approvals Bill, to become law next week, have been used as interim measures while the 300,000-word monstrosity is reviewed.
Bishop has clearly won the argument about the need for a more permissive regime. The public has also accepted that while that work is under way, something of a bulldozer approach is needed to get urgent projects moving, like fast-tracking.
The problem, acknowledged by both Parker and Bishop, is that the nature of such laws risks inviting corruption.
When the Muldoon government used its National Development Act 1979 to ram through its Think Big energy projects, it was at least abusing normal conventions for primarily government-owned projects.
In today’s economy, to make any difference, Parker and Bishop’s regimes must pick out private-sector projects for special treatment, giving rise to all sorts of allegations, especially if those chosen are financially or politically close to the ruling party.
Under the protection of Parliamentary privilege this week, Labour MP Arena Williams made the shock-horror allegation that Winton Land Ltd would gain tens of millions of dollars if its Sunfield project, a proposed 5000-home development on land Auckland Council fears is flood-prone, is approved under the fast-track law.
It caused a dispute in Parliament between Brownlee as Speaker, the Clerk of the House and the Labour Party that everyone will need to get over during the summer.
Williams won’t repeat her attack without the benefit of Parliamentary privilege and her point was a bit obscure. Of course companies profit from their projects being fast-tracked, or else they wouldn’t apply.
Winton was an easy target since those associated with it gave large donations to National at the election. Its board includes Joyce, a party doyen who Bishop worked for in the Key government. In Opposition, Bishop controversially issued a press statement supporting Winton’s litigation against the Crown, despite MPs being best advised not to comment on matters before the courts.
But there is no evidence of wrongdoing by anyone and Winton should not be singled out. Those associated with companies on the fast-track list gave political donations of over $500,000 before the election. The property industry was the biggest single election donor last year and making a donation should not prevent a company from making the cut.
Quite properly, Bishop has recused himself from any decisions about projects that risk even a perception of a conflict of interest. More importantly, it was Bishop who fixed the excesses of the first draft of the legislation agreed with Act and NZ First, which placed final decision-making in the hands of ministers themselves.
Bishop’s improvements sidelined ministers, with an independent expert panel now making all final decisions. Those who think the panel’s decisions are improper or unreasonable will be able to challenge them in court.
That means all the companies on the fast-track list still have work to do. But, if the overwhelming majority do get approved, expect something of a construction boom from 2025.
However, as Bishop himself argues, the real game is rewriting the RMA, as promised by successive governments for three decades. That would restore a level playing field by speeding up everyone’s resource-consent applications, not just those of a lucky few.
Rightly, Bishop has acted cautiously over the fast-track regime, taking a whole year to get it through Parliament, listening to its critics and making big changes to reduce the risk of actual or perceived corruption.
But 2025, when he promises to make final decisions on reforming the RMA, calls for the opposite. There is now a need for bold and urgent decision-making over RMA reform, so Bishop succeeds in three years where his recent predecessors have failed in six or nine.
